LinkedIn + Lead Magnets: A Match Made In Digital Marketing Heaven

You probably have a lead magnet on your website, but do you have one on your LinkedIn, too?

Albeit a bit unconventional, this marketing method is gaining serious traction among businesses—and for a good reason. Adding a successful a lead magnet to your profile can improve your bottom line dramatically.

Lead Magnets 101

It’d be a mistake to jump into this thing without first talking about exactly what a lead magnet is. For the purposes of this article, a lead magnet is defined as a free offer that’s made in exchange for a visitor’s information, like their email address.

Nerdy marketing aside: many people don’t realize this, but this technique takes advantage of principle of reciprocity. If a business does you a favor, you’re likely to try and return their favor in some way.

Sounds easy enough, right?

Well, as you might have guessed, there’s a little bit more to it than that … Although Hare Krishna individuals rocked this technique with ease in the past, it’s not quite as easy to implement today.

Currently, customers are oversaturated with emails and advertisements, so much so that it’s hard to cut through the noise. So, if you want to succeed in this pursuit, you’ll need to offer them quality content in return for their email address. Otherwise, you just join the list of distributors that they’ll eventually unsubscribe from.

Wait, Is This Even Possible?

When it comes to using this technique on LinkedIn, you’re getting the inside scoop. You’ll be one of the first to use this technique—allowing you to reap the rewards long before your competitors.

What Does This Look Like?

Before you run off and try this idea, read the following steps to get started on the right foot:

1) Conceptualize

The first step to creating your lead magnet for LinkedIn is to come up with an idea. During this step, you might be tempted to simply copy what other businesses are doing, but see if you can break out from the crowd.

Remember, consumers—your potential customers—are sick of all of the advertising noise they’re subjected to. Instead of adding to this noise with a lead magnet that’s been done before, think about your company and your unique offerings. Then, create an idea that centers on these ideas so you can provide readers with information that’s actually useful for them.

2) Understand The Anatomy of a LinkedIn Lead Magnet

Within eight seconds of viewing your content, a visitor should understand exactly what you’re offering and how they unlock your offer.

For example, if you’re offering a free e-book in exchange for a visitor’s email, a reader should be able to glean both of these pieces of information within seconds.

In addition, you should use wording that clearly expresses why you created the magnet. There are a few ways to do this, but one of the most successful is to include bullets that provide a summarization of your goals. These bullets can help manage your potential customers’ expectations, too.

Lastly, and most importantly, every great lead magnet has a clear call to action.

3) Harness the Power of Your Audience

General lead magnets often contain content that explains exactly who they’re designed for. On LinkedIn, however, this component does not need to be included.

Instead, this platform provides you with a target audience that’s very specific—allowing you to create a message that’s optimized for the individuals that use this platform.

Regardless of the type of company you run, your viewers are using Linkedin to research information about your company and the people that work there. Equipped with this knowledge, you’ll want to create a lead magnet that will help people achieve this goal.

Simply put, in addition to providing you reader with high value content, you’ll also want to include information that gives them a better idea of what your company does and why your company matters.

4) Avoid This Lead Magnet Faux Pas

In order to succeed with this type of marketing method, you’ll need to go further than the rest.

Many companies simply create lead magnets to gain potential customer’s emails, but then they stop there. They hope that the valuable information they provide will be enough to get the customer intrigued, or they simply use the email they provide to send them reoccurring marketing emails.

Today, both of these approaches are not enough.

On average, businesses need to connect with a least six times to turn them into a customer. Moreover, every connection they have with the lead needs to provide value—something that’s hard to do by simply emailing someone a blanket email marketing campaign.

So, instead of allowing the valuable information your lead magnet provides fall to the wayside, organize it for future use. Funnel it into a tool—like a CRM software—that’ll allow you to analyze it so you can continue to nurture the leads it provides.

5) A/B Test for Success

The best way to improve your LinkedIn lead magnet’s performance is to split test it. This technique will allow you to compare different versions of your lead magnet so you can optimize your offering.

If you’re not sure exactly how to test your lead magnet, start line by line. For example, first, test one headline against another to see what one is more successful. From there, move onto testing its other elements, such as its image(s), the offer itself, etc.

That’s It!

At this point, the only step that’s left in running your own lead magnet on LinkedIn is to give it a try! It might feel a bit strange at first, especially because you’ll be one of the first businesses doing it, but the results will be well worth it.

Also, if you don’t have time to pioneer this new approach but still want to experience its rewards, a skilled marketing agency can help.